Fatal Insomnia: The Complete Trilogy: Farewell to Dreams, A Raging Dawn, and The Sleepless Stars

By CJ Lyons

A terminally ill doctor battles crime and corruption in this medical thriller trilogy by the New York Times–bestselling author of Critical Condition.
 
Farewell to Dreams: ER doctor Angela Rossi is struggling with insomnia when she receives a ghostly plea to save a missing girl. Aided by a police detective fallen from grace, Angela searches the midnight catacombs beneath the city, facing down a ruthless gang leader and stumbling onto a serial killer’s lair. Her desperate quest to rescue the girl leads her to the one thing she least expected to find: a last chance for love.
 
As her symptoms escalate in bizarre and disturbing ways, Angie realizes exactly how serious her illness is. She might be dying, but she’s finally choosing how to live . . .
 
A Raging Dawn: Dr. Rossi is diagnosed with Fatal Insomnia and given only a few months to live. She’d like to say her goodbyes to everyone and spend her last days on a deserted island. But first she must provide testimony in a rape case.
 
However, on the day of the trial, the victim is murdered, allowing the rapist to go free—and motivating Angela to bring him to justice. With nothing left to lose or fear, she makes for a perfect vigilante . . .
 
The Sleepless Stars: When Dr. Rossi discovers that her disease—and the disease she’s discovered in dozens of young children—is the creation of a mysterious cabal, she begins investigating the lies and betrayal that led the terrible epidemic.
 
Meanwhile, Devon Price, a father of one of those children, is on the hunt for those responsible. He is willing to lie, cheat, steal, or even kill to ensure his daughter’s safety. But in the end, their only hope might be a desperate deal with the devil: the faction behind the epidemic. A deal paid with blood. A deal not everyone will survive.
 
Praise for the Fatal Insomnia series
 
“A remarkable medical thriller equal to the very best of Robin Cook or Michael Crichton. This intelligent, well-crafted novel, based on a startlingly original premise, builds up tension to the breaking point and beyond, delivering plenty of surprises along the way. Totally absorbing and impossible to put down.” —Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times–bestselling author
 
“Farewell to Dreams has it all: a heroine you’ll never forget and a story that whips by at bullet speed.” —Tess Gerritsen, New York Times–bestselling author

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781946578150

Book preview

Farewell to Dreams

FATAL INSOMNIA MEDICAL THRILLERS

What Keeps You Awake at Night?

Fatal Insomnia Medical Thrillers

FAREWELL TO DREAMS, Fatal Insomnia Book #1

A RAGING DAWN, Fatal Insomnia Book #2

THE SLEEPLESS STARS, Fatal Insomnia Book #3

Based on a real-life disease that promises a horrifying death, CJ’s Fatal Insomnia series chronicles one doctor’s search for redemption, hope, and an unexpected chance at love.

She might be dying, but she’s finally learning how to live…

CJ Lyons scores a major triumph. Totally absorbing and impossible to put down." ~Douglas Preston

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Thanks for reading! CJ

CHAPTER ONE

The earth is heavy and opaque without dreams." ~Anaïs Nin

I’m Angela Rossi. I’m thirty-four years old, and this is the story of how I die.

I’m an ER doctor and victim’s advocate—make that former ER doc—and this is the story of how I live.

Most of all, it’s a story of redemption.

I hope.

Guess it all depends on your point of view…

Even if it’s a rainy Thanksgiving night with the ER’s waiting room overflowing and all of our exam rooms filled, cops and firemen will always get first dibs on our attention. They may have to wait if others are closer to death, but they’re going to get seen and seen fast.

Here at Cambria City’s Good Samaritan, the only trauma center still standing in this corner of Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains, we know how to treat our friends, and when you work on the front lines in the ER, first responders are more than friends, they’re family.

So when I grabbed the next chart stacked in front of the overflowing rack and saw a cop’s name there, I was surprised.

Like most of my colleagues, my job encompasses more than simply working shifts in the emergency department. I’m also medical director of the Cambria Advocacy Center, in charge of forensic evaluations of victims of violence. More than collecting evidence and assisting the police with their investigations, we also provide support and counseling to victims.

Matthew Ryder’s name had come across my desk as the replacement for the detective who had been working with us. Poor guy had driven off an icy bridge and died. But I hadn’t expected to first meet our new detective as a patient.

I glanced at the registration time on the chart: 17:02. Ryder had been waiting almost three hours already.

Why didn’t you guys tell me there was a police officer waiting? I asked the clerk at the nurses’ station. I could have eyeballed him between the MI we sent up to the cath lab and the guy stabbed with the drumstick. Drumstick Guy had made our night. ERs are like that; our fun begins when yours ends.

He didn’t want to bother you. Said he was in no rush.

Great. Despite what he said, no cop would take kindly to waiting three hours. Especially not with the ER as crazy as it was tonight. Trust a family holiday to bring out the worst in everyone.

I did put him in front of the minor cares, especially when I saw all the blood. His words were underscored by the wailing of yet another ambulance arriving. My shift ended an hour ago, which meant the ambulance was someone else’s problem, but the least I could do was take care of Ryder—and check out the detective I’d be working closely with starting next week.

Scanning Ryder’s chart, I wove my way around two patients parked in wheelchairs outside of X-ray and a family member pacing as he talked on a cell phone.

Amazing what a triage note can tell you about a person. Scalp laceration. Good vitals. Thirty-seven years old, no meds, no allergies, 182 pounds, single. I pulled back the curtain to Ryder’s bed space.

Instead of lying on the patient bed, Ryder straddled the rolling office chair meant for physicians, watching the next bed space through an opening in the curtain, his back to me.

They’re scared, he said without turning around.

His voice was pitched low, but had no trouble carrying to me, its intended target. It was that kind of voice. More like a bullet, direct and forceful, than an invitation. His posture was relaxed yet commanding, perfect for a cop or soldier. As if he owned the space, the room, the entire emergency department.

The area beside him was occupied by a family gathered around an elderly woman, wringing their hands, arguing with each other in English peppered with Hungarian. Back when the Pennsylvania Railroad was in its heyday and the coal mines still producing, Cambria City’s diversity once rivaled Ellis Island’s. We’re still multicultural, but in the current economic plight, the majority of our citizens now speak the same language: welfare.

Ryder turned and glanced at me. The chart hadn’t mentioned his blue eyes, so blue they couldn’t be ignored. Blood seeped through the towel he pressed casually against the side of his head. Scalp lacs are like that, bleed like stink.

You should talk with them. Tell them she’ll be all right. He didn’t give me a chance to argue, seemed to assume we were in agreement and that he was in charge. I’ll wait.

I washed my hands and gloved up, choosing to ignore his presumptive attitude. I’d spent most of my twelve-hour shift helping the Kowaczs: arguing with their HMO, negotiating with my fellow doctors for space, kissing the charge nurse’s butt when the entire clan descended upon us. She won’t be all right. She’s dying.

Damned undignified way to do it. Can’t you give them some privacy?

It was impossible to ignore his stare or the force behind it. If I hadn’t been so exhausted after the long day, I might have given in and let loose my anger at his impertinence. Instead, I broke free from his gaze and yanked the curtain closed.

Best I can do for now. A sudden tremor in my left hand distracted me. Damn it, not again.

I’d had problems for the past few weeks, on and off, but chalked it up to overwork, stress, and exhaustion. It’d been since before summer that I’d had a full night’s sleep or done more than toss and turn, my limbs restless with the urge to move, move, move. Fatigue I could handle, one of the many skills any ER doc masters. But even a slight tremor could be a problem. A twitch or shake at the wrong moment, say, with your hand holding a scalpel, could be devastating.

My best friend, Louise Mehta, is a neurologist, so I’d promised myself that if the tremor continued or if things got worse, I’d let her check me out. Clenching my left hand at my side, I willed the spasm away. If I could make it stop, then things weren’t worse and I could continue to ignore my symptoms.

The tremor wasn’t cooperating. Much like the patient before me. Why don’t you lie down on the bed so I can examine you?

No, thank you. I’m fine here. He pushed the chair out of reach, preferring a confrontation to an examination. Why?

Now both my hands were fisted at my hips, and it had nothing to do with any tremor. Why what? Why use the patient exam bed for an examination?

Why is that the best you can do? His tone wasn’t judgmental. Quite the opposite. As if he genuinely cared about the Kowaczs or my problems. But it had been a hard day, and Ryder was unlucky enough to become my last straw.

Because I’m a sadistic, heartless bitch who couldn’t give a shit. Why do you think? Maybe because there are no open beds in the hospital, and even if there were, we have no nurses to staff them, and even if we did, the Kowaczs’ insurance doesn’t cover hospice or end-of-life care.

He held my gaze during my tirade, steady as an anvil absorbing hammer blows, finally blinking when I stopped to take a breath. Feel better now?

My sigh turned into a chuckle as my mood lightened. My tremor disappeared as well. See? Nothing to worry about. Yes, I do. I’ll feel even better if you tell me what happened and let me examine you.

It’s stupid, really. He removed the towel to reveal a two-centimeter gash above his temple. His flannel shirt and the T-shirt beneath it were splattered with blood. You know when you’re microwaving those frozen dinners and they say remove to stir halfway? I left the door to the microwave open and hit my head on the corner when I went to put the dinner back in.

Did you burn yourself or black out? I explored the laceration. Superficial, a few staples would close it nicely.

No.

It’s Thanksgiving, and you were home alone having a frozen dinner? I poured Betadine over his wound, releasing the sour scent of iodine into the small space.

Now who’s wasting time with questions that have nothing to do with medicine?

Just checking your mental status, seeing if you have any psych problems. Despite my exhaustion, I enjoyed the banter. He was easy to talk to—a plus for a Sex Crimes detective. Interesting that he hadn’t played the policeman card. I was relieved to see my fingers completely steady as they guided the hair-thin, 27-gauge needle along the edges of his wound, infiltrating it with lidocaine.

Before he could answer, the curtain flipped open, its cheerful rattling a sharp counterpoint to the chorus of coughing coming from the hallway beyond it.

Angie, we need to talk.

If Ryder’s voice was one of quiet command, my ex’s was gentle persuasion, smooth and warm enough to make you turn as if searching for sunlight to bask in. It was Jacob’s strength both in and out of court, and the one thing about him I could seldom resist.

I’m a little busy. I glanced up at Jacob, then immediately forced my gaze away, knowing what he wanted. Despite being divorced for three—no, four—years, we’re still close and usually fall together again around the holidays. Two lonely people who share a past and know how to comfort each other.

He stepped into the room, the curtain whishing shut behind him, blocking out the chaos of the ER. Tall, lean, with a mop of curly dark hair and a gaunt, narrow face, Jacob radiates intensity. He makes you want to listen to him, look at him, agree with him. A snake charmer, his cohorts at the DA’s office call him. I concentrated on filling my irrigation syringe, as if the simple four-second task required all my attention.

Your mother sent me to bring you.

That got my attention. It isn’t often that Jacob lies—although, for a rabbi’s son, he can do it surprisingly well. Learned how in law school. When he does lie, it’s never self-serving. This time it was easy to see whom he was protecting. And it wasn’t me. My ex-husband is closer to my family than I’ll ever be. To tell the truth, he’s closer than I ever was—at least not since I was twelve and my father died.

Killed. In a car crash. My fault.

My dad, Angelo… I’m like him in every way. Same dark, Italian looks, same incessant fidgeting, unable to sit without tapping a song out with my fingers or toes, unable to walk anywhere when I could be running. Restless, unable to just… be.

Those qualities had made my dad the life of the party, loved by everyone. And me? I killed the man who was my mother’s entire life, the man who could make her laugh and cry and laugh again all in the space of a single heartbeat. Every time my mom looked at me, that’s who she saw.

It’s been twenty-two years since my dad died. I glanced up at Jacob, wishing he were telling the truth, that my mom did send him to ask me to join the family. That she wanted me. There, alongside my sister and cousins and the laughter and joy. Silly, wistful thinking. You’d think an ER doc would know better. No, she didn’t.

He didn’t waste any breath with a sigh. All right, she didn’t. But everyone else did.

My shoulders hunched in regret, I turned my back on Jacob to aim a stream of sterile water at Ryder’s laceration.

Hey, that’s cold, he protested, but he didn’t flinch or move away as I doused him and his shirt. That’s what he got for insisting on sitting up in the chair rather than lying down.

Your shift was over at seven, and it’s now twelve after eight. Jacob tried again. He’s almost as stubborn as I am. C’mon. It’ll be fun. The whole band is there. Besides, you look tired. Play a few sets with us. It’ll work the kinks out.

By that, I knew he meant we’d work some kinks out, after my uncle’s bar closed down for the night and everyone went home. Usually, I enjoy playing fiddle in the ceili band my father had founded. Just as I usually look forward to the physical intimacy Jacob offers. But not tonight. Jacob knew me far too well. My secret wasn’t safe from him. If he noticed my night sweats or tremors or the sudden stumbles as my feet forgot which way was down, he’d be pounding on Louise’s door, holiday or no holiday, and insist I get a head-to-toe checkup.

I didn’t need a checkup. All I needed was a good night’s sleep. It’d been so long that the idea of sleep was more appealing than sex. How sad is that?

As I turned to grab the stapler, Ryder mopped the water from his face with his shirt-sleeve.

Matthew Ryder, Jacob said, showing no embarrassment over exposing our family’s—my family’s—dirty laundry to a co-worker. I didn’t recognize you under all that blood.

Hey there, Voorsanger. Minor cooking accident. The kitchen is in worse shape than I am.

Heard you’re taking Harrison’s place on Sex Crimes. You up for it? His voice held a challenge.

I glanced from one man to the other, wondering if there was a reason why Ryder might not be ready to take over Mitch Harrison’s case load. Particularly the string of sadistic sexual assaults that had plagued the city the past few months. All tied to one assailant using a street drug nicknamed Death Head to subdue his victims. Harrison had been frustrated as hell by the case, chased down every lead, but at the time he’d spun out on that bridge two weeks ago, he’d gotten nowhere.

Ryder didn’t answer Jacob right away. Instead, he held his gaze steady, meeting Jacob’s dead-on. Yeah. I’m up for it. Soon as the doc puts my scalp back together, that is.

Taking my cue, I wielded the surgical stapler, breaking up their touching reunion. Jacob, I’m sure they’re waiting for you back at the bar. My Uncle Jimmy’s bar hosted all our family holidays. And you, I pivoted Ryder back into place and planted a firm hand on his head, hold still.

The sharp clack of the stapler firing snapped through the room, making them both jerk.

I’ll figure out something to tell your mother. Jacob spoke as if granting me a royal boon. Call me when you’re done here. He left, the curtain rattling shut. I was surprised the blood hadn’t scared him off earlier. Like I said. Stubborn.

Then he poked his face through the curtain again. Beckoning me to come closer. I leaned toward him.

You sure you’re okay? His low baritone was for my ears only, as was the concern on his face.

Go. Have fun with my crazy family. I’m fine.

He gazed into my eyes, effortlessly read the lie there, and brushed my hip with his palm, an open invitation. Right. Just checking. Call me.

Then he was gone again. I turned back to the job at hand, ignoring Ryder’s amused look.

So you and Voorsanger… Ryder said as I finished stapling his laceration.

Were married. Once. A long time ago. It wasn’t a secret. You do know I’m medical director of the Advocacy Center?

Actually, you never introduced yourself.

I covered my chagrin by hastily clearing away the suture tray. Had I really not introduced myself? I snapped my gloves off and turned back to him. My chest and neck flushed with embarrassment. I’m not used to tripping up over little things like simple manners. It’s usually bigger things that get to me. Like my fight with the HMO that had deteriorated into a shouting match and still left Mrs. Kowacz stranded in my ER instead of in hospice care where she belonged. I apologize, Detective.

He pushed out of the chair and turned to me with a full-wattage smile. No problem. Let’s start over. I’m Matthew Ryder.

I took his outstretched hand and shook it. His hand was large enough to swallow mine whole, but he didn’t squeeze too hard. Instead, it was a brief, firm contact. Angela Rossi.

Nice to meet you, Angela Rossi. If what Voorsanger said was true, he jerked his head at the curtain Jacob had disappeared through, and your shift is over, then how about joining me for dinner?

I hesitated. Something I hardly ever do. Usually I’m the first to leap into a situation, trusting my instincts and my ability to tap-dance my way out of problems. But even I know better than to date patients or co-workers. Ryder fell under both categories. Still, something in me wanted to take him up on his offer. And I hesitated.

Hesitation is never a good thing in the ER. Moments of doubt are when patients die. Things happen at lightning speed during those moments, things you can never take back again.

Before I could answer Ryder, the curtain was thrown aside, and two security guards rushed in, carrying a woman’s body between them. She was dumped out of a car, bleeding everywhere, one said breathlessly as they heaved her onto the gurney. Christ, doc, do something!

Ryder jumped back, startled. I slammed the code alarm and reached for the woman’s head, checking her airway while controlling her C-spine. She was pale, her complexion almost matching the gray hair matted to her scalp. Hand me that oxygen mask.

He placed the non-rebreather mask onto the woman’s face as I wrenched her shirt open, exposing two gunshot wounds to her chest. A nurse jogged in to see what was going on, took one look, and shouted for someone to call a trauma code. She grabbed the monitor leads while I jammed a 14-gauge angiocath into the woman’s arm and hooked it up to a bag of saline, no pump or anything, just let it pour in.

Sats are dropping, Shari, the nurse, said once the pulse ox was hooked up.

Bag her. Heart sounds are muffled. I have to needle her.

Before I could try to drain the blood collecting around her heart, the monitors alarmed. No pulse!

Chest compressions. Damn it. This woman needed to be in an OR. Now. Instead, she was on a bed in a suture room with no surgeon in sight.

Ryder, hand me that bundle, the one labeled vascular. He spun around and rummaged through the shelf behind him, finally reaching the sterile vascular set.

What are you going to do? He handed me the instrument tray.

I wrenched the sterile sheets open, exposing an array of clamps, sutures, needle drivers, scissors, and a scalpel. I’m cracking her chest.

Shari’s hands stuttered in their rhythm and I saw the question in her eyes, but she knew we had no choice. She scooped up a bottle of Betadine and flooded the left side of the woman’s chest with the brown surgical soap as I snapped on a pair of sterile gloves. Ryder took over chest compressions without being told.

Damn it, where is everyone? I asked, holding the knife poised for a skin incision. I really, really didn’t want to do this: It was a last-ditch effort, doomed to failure, but the woman was already dead. It wasn’t like I could make her any deader.

That MVA coded up in the ICU. They were rushing him back to the OR, Shari answered.

Hold compressions. Ryder eased back, his face dripping sweat onto my semi-sterile field. Least of my worries—or my patient’s. I sliced through my patient’s flesh. I had to put some muscle into it, pushing my way through the tough connective tissue that held the rib cage together.

Pull that apart and hold it. I used Shari as a rib spreader. Sliding my hand between the ribs, I pushed the spongy lung tissue aside.

I held my patient’s heart in my hand. It felt boggy, like a half-filled water balloon. Pericardial tamponade. Fluid built up around her heart, strangling it so it couldn’t beat. From the amount of blood, there was probably a major vessel torn as well. One thing at a time. First, I clamped the aorta.

Next, I needed to release the tamponade. Cutting a simple flap in the membrane covering the heart would do the trick.

Except for one thing. I knew what I had to do. In fact, I could see the steps of the operation to create the pericardial flap and then repair any holes in her heart or blood vessels. I could see it all like a dizzying complex series of textbook pages flipping through my vision in 3-D Technicolor.

But I could not move. My body was locked into place, rigid, unresponsive to my brain’s frantic commands.

I know her, Ryder was saying. His voice sounded normal, as if there were nothing wrong. It’s Sister Patrice. She works over at St. Timothy’s.

She’s a nun? Shari said.

In my head I was cursing. Screaming. This woman was dying under my hands, but Ryder and Shari were too distracted to notice I was frozen, unable to move or function. Panic surged through me. Had I gone crazy? Was this really happening? How could they not see me standing here like a zombie, my patient dying right in front of me?

Then I realized it wasn’t only my voice I heard. There was music. Gorgeous, angelic chords so crystal clear they made my heart ache. Women singing. Ave Maria. The notes swirled around me, lifting me up beyond my body. Soaring and dizzy, I was looking down on the scene below me. Yet at the same time, I was tethered to the earth, totally paralyzed.

Panic and disorientation flooded me even as the music seeped into every cell of my body, bringing a sense of harmony and peace. The paradoxes tugged at my senses, leaving me reeling.

Then everything stopped, the world as frozen as I was.

I forgive you.

Who said that? It was a woman’s voice, each word sparking golden notes shining bright and perfumed with honey, but I couldn’t move or respond.

Help the girl. Save the girl.

The voice dropped to an urgent whisper, becoming bruised indigo blows against my flesh, strained with pain, copper-heavy with blood. A dying gasp—inside my head.

This was no time for a detour into The Twilight Zone. I was this woman’s last chance. Her only chance.

Anger sliced through my panic. Rage, fury, whatever it was, it burned hot. A fire raging inside me, out of control. My vision blurred, I couldn’t blink, couldn’t focus, couldn’t speak. Hell, the things I couldn’t do were infinite. Starting with saving my patient.

A shudder roiled through my body, and suddenly, I could move again. My hand spasmed, squeezing the woman’s heart, but no one knew except me. In fact, Ryder and Shari didn’t seem to have noticed that anything was wrong.

But I knew. Something was terribly wrong.

Shoving my fears and questions aside, I grabbed the scissors and sliced a window in the pericardium. I milked a blood clot out, did internal compressions, waiting for the heart to fill and start to beat on its own.

It never did.

CHAPTER TWO

Devon Price had spent the drive from Philly barricading his memories. From the Town Car’s backseat, he watched as mountains turned to concrete and brick, ribbons of fog and rain obscuring derelicts and despair.

The Town Car slid to a stop. Devon stepped outside and glanced up at the weathered seven-story concrete slab with its 1970’s utilitarian design. His childhood home, Cambria’s notorious gang-ridden housing development, the Kingston Tower.

All the hopes and fears and pain and guilt that had driven him away hit like a sucker punch. Except he wasn’t a sucker. Not anymore.

Reining in his emotions, he took a breath. Despite the rain, the air stank of urine and unwashed bodies. Some homecoming.

He didn’t wait for his driver, Harold, to bring the umbrella, forcing the larger man to jog through the rain after him. Devon ignored the puddles of icy water and kept his focus on the walkway and stoop that guarded the Tower’s entrance.

Become the change, he muttered, taking in the Tower’s graffiti-covered concrete walls, the scattered trash, the broken windows patched with cardboard, plastic, and plywood.

Still, it was a definite improvement over when he was a kid and junkies shot up on the Tower’s stoop, creating an obstacle course to negotiate on the way to and from school. Devon had grown up here with the other invisibles, the wished-they-had-work, less-than-poor. Kingston Tower. His playground, his school, his prison.

When he left Cambria eleven years ago, he’d vowed to never return. He’d broken that promise. Had to.

She’d called.

A pair of shiftless gangbangers huddled in the entranceway, eyeing Devon and the Town Car with suspicion. Tyree’s crew. He’d noted them when the car pulled up to the curb—there had been three of them to start with.

Word’s gone ahead. There’ll be a welcoming committee, he told Harold as the taller man opened the umbrella and held it over Devon’s head. Fair warning. Tyree will not be inviting us to Thanksgiving dinner. He’d be lucky if the gang leader didn’t greet him with a MAC-10 on full auto.

Devon glanced at the car, wondering if it was a mistake leaving it here. Back in Philly, the black Town Car had become his trademark, differentiating Devon from the dealers with their white Escalades and the runners with their jacked-up rice burners. Thanks to his partnership with the Russians, Devon had moved beyond the street gangs. He now controlled his own operation, his own people, his own destiny.

At least he had until she’d called. Bringing him west through the Pennsylvania industrial wasteland, switchbacking over mountains and through his past until he’d finally arrived back where he’d begun. Cambria City. The Tower.

The prodigal returned home. No, that guy was greeted with feasting and parties. No one would be throwing a party for Devon, although some wouldn’t mind throwing him a funeral.

More like Hamlet. Except that hadn’t turned out so hot. Devon stared at the Tower, squaring his shoulders, stretching the Italian silk of his suit. Hamlet was a whiny-ass pussy. Not a street fighter like Devon.

Everything’s ready, Harold assured him. Devon’s second-in-command had a mind like a CPA, always calculating, collecting details, inside the body of a WWE wrestler.

Remember, no guns.

The men have their instructions. Harold nodded to the SUV pulling up behind them. A Yukon hybrid. Dima and Alexi had scoffed when Devon wrangled his way to the top of the waiting list at the dealership. Russians. They’d pinch a penny until it cried then waste a thousand on imported vodka. As thoughtless and greedy as the gangbangers but twice as ruthless.

Harold stepped forward as three more from Tyree’s crew appeared from the shadows in front of the building’s entrance, flanking the two already at the door, lining up on either side of the crumbling concrete stoop. Devon waved Harold back and faced the men. Time to run the gauntlet once again.

Tyree says go up to his penthouse, one of the original two said, holding the glass door to the Tower open.

Devon waited, his gaze targeting each member of his welcoming committee. They were a ragged bunch, even by Cambria standards. Unlike Philly gangs, these bangers crossed racial boundaries. Cambria was like that—progressive, leading the country in poverty for all. Tyree had gotten one thing right: silly to squabble about ethnic divisions when you could band together and rule. At least that was the line of bull he’d used when Devon was a kid. An equal opportunity exploiter.

The men—boys, really—lined up, some with fists ready, others assuming cocky postures modeled after hip-hop vids. The requisite gold caps and bling revealed their relative rank and worth to the Royales, Tyree’s gang. A variety of handguns, stuck into the waistbands of low-rider, too-baggy pants. Eyes cold, hard, bleak, and empty.

Despite their posturing, these punks wouldn’t have lasted a minute on any Philly street corner. Less than that going up against the Russians. Devon made certain his smile made it to his eyes as he strode past them, Harold on his heels. The doorman blocked their way, arms crossed in front of his chest.

Just the Runt, he said, nodding to Devon, using the label that had followed Devon throughout his childhood, back when he had worshipped Tyree and been a wannabe. Devon hated the name. So innocuous. As if Devon was powerless.

We’ll see about that. Devon paused to take the umbrella from Harold and folded it closed as he crossed the threshold. Didn’t want anyone getting seriously hurt. Not until he saw what Tyree’s intentions were.

Harold didn’t slow as he grabbed the punk by his jacket lapels and lifted him to the side. Where he goes, I go. And it’s Mr. Price to you, bitch.

They kept walking, ignoring the sound of a slide being pulled on a semiautomatic. Devon didn’t bother to look back, although he appreciated Harold’s bulk between him and the punk. Behind him, he heard someone muttering to let it go—what was a skinny-ass runt and one fat white guy against Tyree’s army?

Army? Devon rolled his eyes. He’d seen better organized Cub Scout troops. As he crossed the lobby, he did notice a difference. Despite the outside appearance of the Tower, inside, things were decidedly better. There was still graffiti, but no garbage, no junkies passed out in the corners, the floor could pass for clean.

Was this the work of Tyree’s so-called army? Or had the women of the Tower finally been able to make a difference in their environment? He hoped it was the latter. After all, that’s what his mother had devoted her life to. Before Daniel Kingston, owner of the Tower and most of the souls who resided within its concrete walls, had destroyed her.

Devon grabbed hold of the old anger and used it to bolster his resolve. Last thing he needed was for anyone, especially Tyree, to see exactly how difficult it was coming back here. Too many betrayals—too many people he’d betrayed.

Maybe this was a mistake. Eleven years was a long time. She would have changed, built a life without him. Stupid to return here, trying to reclaim a fantasy.

But she’d called. How could he not come for her?

Two more soldiers waited at the elevator. One to guard the door and the other to join them inside and punch the button to the seventh floor. The elevator had also changed. Used to be it worked only sporadically and was a great place to get jumped. Urine, feces, and used condoms had once littered the floor, and blood had seeped into the cracks in the fake wood-paneled walls.

Now it had walls of mirrors, shag carpet on the floor, and smelled of Pure 50 cologne.

Surprised Tyree didn’t add some Muzak, Devon said.

The punk manning the buttons nodded. Had it rigged up. Man, it rocked, shook the whole damn building. But the speakers blew. He shrugged. Whatcha gonna do?

All the elevators like this now?

Hell no. This the only one running. Tyree’s private ride. You’re lucky he didn’t make you walk up the stairs like everyone else.

He has the entire seventh floor as his, ah, penthouse?

Oh yeah. For him and some of his top dogs, we have rooms up there. The ho’s as well. Gotta put them somewhere we can keep an eye on them.

Devon restrained himself. He couldn’t abide drugs or prostitution. The Russians had mistaken that for a weakness—at first. Until he showed them how to turn a higher profit for less risk. His financial savvy was the only thing worthwhile that he’d inherited from his father. How about Tyree’s sister? She get to stay up in the penthouse?

Nah, man. Sister’d have none of it. The punk turned to look at Devon for the first time. You really gonna buy this place from old man Kingston?

That’s the plan. It was a hastily constructed lie, a convenient excuse to cover the real reason for his visit home. If Tyree knew the truth, that Jess had called Devon, he’d kill them both.

While he’d cruised the block, taking stock of the situation, Devon couldn’t help but notice that every storefront had either a going out of business or a for sale sign on its door. Real estate prices what they were, Daniel Kingston had to be taking a huge loss. Devon had cash to burn—well, launder, technically. What better way to solve everyone’s problems than to buy not only the Tower but also the rest of the block?

The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea’s sheer audacious poetry. He’d have to make the offer anonymously. Mr. Daniel Came Over On The Mayflower Kingston would never sully the family name by selling to a former resident, most especially Devon. And even though Tyree and his Royales ran the Tower as their turf, Devon was certain Daniel Kingston’s lily-white ass still controlled Tyree. No way in hell would things have changed so much that Daniel would have ever relinquished his hold on the Tower.

Devon had carved a niche for himself in the Russians’ sphere of influence. Surely it was time to declare his independence. Return home and finally make good on the dreams his mother and the women who’d raised him had had for him.

They had wanted him to become their champion. Had told him he had the power to make a difference in the Tower—their world.

Before Tyree had run him out of town with a death price on his head.

Back then, when Devon was seventeen, he’d been a reader, a lover, not a fighter. A runt.

Eleven years had changed all that.

The elevator doors opened on seven. Two more of Tyree’s men got onto the elevator, and one pushed the button for the roof.

The roof? Now Devon was intrigued. Growing up, the roof, with its all-too-optimistic playground, basketball court, community garden, and Victorian-style greenhouse—the Tower’s pride and joy back in the day—had been off-limits unless you were looking to score drugs or get a beat-down.

They arrived, and the doors slid open. Tyree’s men lined up, one on each side of Devon, the third hanging back with Harold. Devon paused before exiting, taking it all in.

What had once been an open-air basketball court was now enclosed—not very well, from the draft snaking around Devon’s ankles—to form a reception hall with a wall of windows at the far end. Red velvet drapes hid the walls, but Devon caught a glimpse of unpainted drywall. The roof was sheets of translucent corrugated fiberglass perched on two-by-fours, the rain creating a thrumming undercurrent as if a wild animal paced above them, while the floor was cracked concrete with a stretch of red carpet extending from the elevators to a large executive desk—exquisite, hand-crafted mahogany—perched on a plywood dais in front of the windows. A single leather chair stood behind the desk. Tyree’s throne.

An impressive way to greet visitors—and to control who came and went. As Devon approached Tyree, he immediately scanned the area, noting exits, strategic positions, the number of bodyguards—four—and the number of guns—at least six since Tyree always carried two, had ever since a cheap semi had jammed on him in the middle of a firefight.

A firefight that had involved two teens hopped-up on crank, an unpaid tab, and an unarmed sixteen-year-old prostitute. The prostitute had been the only casualty. No great loss, Tyree boasted whenever he told the story. He’d gotten his money from the teens, and the ho had been costing him more in rock than she’d been bringing in.

Of course, Tyree never mentioned that the ho was his own cousin.

He hadn’t changed with the years. Still the same unpolished, braggart bully. Devon could see that in the way Tyree leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers, smiling as if he were royalty granting an audience to some lowly peon. Cunning, wily, street smart, but with little wisdom.

So the Runt finally grew into his big-boy pants, Tyree said, crashing his chair down onto all four legs. He was eight years older than Devon’s twenty-eight and had several inches on Devon’s six feet, plus about forty pounds, all of it the bulging muscles that came from steroids and heavy lifting. In other words, all show. Useless in a real fight.

Since fleeing Cambria and working his way up through the Russians’ organization, Devon had been in more fights than he could count—physical and mental. The physical ones had been by far the easier. Before the Russians had totally accepted him, after he’d shunned Philly’s black street gangs, he’d killed two men with his bare hands.

It’d been awhile, but he could do it again. Might even enjoy it in Tyree’s case.

Happy Thanksgiving, Devon said, wondering if Jess’s message had been right. She’d left him a voice mail this morning at 7:28, either dodging talking to him directly—she knew damn well he never got up before noon—or because it was too urgent to wait. Probably both. Her voice had been panicked, a whisper begging him to come, that she needed him, and not to say a word to her brother, Tyree.

He sucked in his breath, drawing oxygen down into every fiber, the memory of her final words, that she needed him—him, the outcast, the runt—singing through his mind, repeating until he could block out the panic underlying them. He and Jess, they were meant to be together. Make a family together. Now, finally, maybe, they could.

He’d initially thought he’d swoop in, bluff his way past Tyree, rescue Jess, and escape. After seeing this place, what Tyree had done with it, the decay and ugly filth, he was tempted to stay. Claim his birthright, defy both Tyree and Daniel Kingston.

With Jess at his side, he could do it. Hell, if Tyree didn’t wipe that shit-eating grin from his face, Devon might just do it.

Hear you want to buy the Tower, Tyree said, absently snapping his fingers. Instantly, two women emerged from the shadows. Both wore shear negligees, a throwback to the 1970s like the rest of the cheap bordello decor. Tyree had obviously seen Shaft one time too many.

One girl bent over to insert a cigar into his mouth. The other lit it for him as he puffed, his lips pursed like a fish, teeth clamped down. I reckon it’s better to work with you than that white mofo, Kingston, so, he blew out a lopsided smoke circle, you have my permission.

Devon held back his laughter. He didn’t need anyone’s permission. And the more he thought about taking over the Tower, massacring Tyree and his crew, sticking it to Kingston, the more he liked the idea. Er, thank you.

Yeah, I think it’s fine. You kick back ten percent of the rents you collect, and my boys will continue to provide protection and other services.

Services like mugging old folks, terrorizing women and children, selling drugs and sex.

That’s mighty kind of you.

Tyree narrowed his eyes. Not so dumb after all, he’d caught Devon’s edge of sarcasm. You want to see my sister while you’re here, I suppose. He chuckled. Bitch is gonna drop a cow she hear you back.

Typical of Tyree, after their royal audience, he wouldn’t let Devon and Harold use the elevator, instead sent them down the stairs to the third-floor apartment Tyree had once shared with his grandmother and sister. The apartment had been Devon’s second home while growing up. He’d pretty much been raised by the entire collective of the older generation of women in the Tower. Cece, Jess’s gram, had been one of the best of the bunch. Would tan his hide if he cracked wise, but also quick to encourage his natural abilities, got him reading, learning about money, how the real world beyond the Tower worked.

After Jess’s accident and everything that followed, he’d promised Cece he’d take care of them. And he’d tried, sent back money after Tyree ran him out of town. Enough so Cece and Jess could have left the Tower. But they hadn’t. Even after Cece died last year, Jess still wouldn’t leave. He was certain the fault lay with Tyree, who’d never relinquish control over his family, allow them to escape.

Jess had made Devon promise to never come back. At the time, Tyree had vowed to kill them both if he did. He’d also sworn to protect Jess if Devon stayed away.

Yet, she’d called Devon this morning. Not Tyree. And she’d been terrified, sounded afraid for her life.

Tyree wasn’t a man of his word.

Unlike Devon. If he shook on a deal, that deal was done. If he said he’d come through, he came through.

If he said you were a dead man, you’d best pick out an outfit for the casket.

After a business associate had defaulted on a loan and Devon had inherited a Laundromat and its contents, that had become his calling card: sending a nice suit, compliments of Devon Price. Your first and last warning to make things right before the funeral.

Even the Russians got a kick out of that.

As he strode from the staircase down the dimly lit hallway toward Jess’s door, he wondered, not for the first time, if Tyree was setting him up. Forcing Jess to call him home, making him break his vow, only to find a funeral suit waiting for him.

No red carpets here. Just bare concrete floors trumpeting his approach to residents huddled behind triple-locked doors. Walls covered with Royale graffiti, the stench of onions, dirty diapers, and surrender.

By the time he reached Jess’s door, his chest was heaving—from fear? Or the excitement of seeing her again after eleven years? Both. He was glad Harold was too far away to notice him run his palms against his suit jacket. Sweat gathered in the scars, constant souvenirs of his childhood here in the Tower.

Get with the game. Her phone call hadn’t been a booty call—she’d been panicked. No, terrified. Had to be to reach out to him after all this time.

He knocked on the door. Stopped when he saw it wasn’t latched shut. He stood away from the threshold, nodding to Harold, who sidled down to a position where he could cover both Devon and the stairs. Drawing his gun and hugging the wall, Devon pushed the door open.

The smell hit him first. Not a good smell. Copper, salty, tangy-sweet. The smell of death.

The hairs on his arms stood at attention as he edged a glance around the doorframe. A single light bulb burned in the room beyond. It was more than enough to show him what he didn’t want to see.

Jess lay on the floor, arms sprawled toward him. She could have been welcoming him home.

Except for the blood.

CHAPTER THREE

No one knows how long it takes to die. Not even us doctors. We know that once blood stops flowing to the brain, it takes only a few seconds to lose consciousness—but that could mean a faint, a coma, or death.

If it’s a faint, gravity helps out and once the brain falls below the heart, blood rushes back to it and you wake up. If a coma, all bets are off on when or if you’ll regain consciousness. And death? Well, much as the surgical hotshots might argue, there’s no cure for death.

Dead is dead. Science’s best guess is that it takes around four to six minutes without blood flow and oxygen for a brain to die.

Which means that when the nun spoke to me, she wasn’t quite dead yet. Only in a coma. Her heart might have been stopped, but her brain still had some electrical activity. Neurons gasping their final breaths, firing off random impulses hurtling down synaptic connections.

Figuring that out didn’t make me feel any better.

The surgeon arrived in a breathless rush, swearing at the primitive conditions inside the suture room. He shoved me aside to explore the mess you made and found a gash in Sister Patrice’s vena cava. Then he stripped his Tyvek gown and mask away, told me to call sooner next time, and stalked out.

Jesus, Ryder said, the nun’s blood mixing with his own on his clothing. Who would want to shoot Sister Patrice?

I had my own cosmic questions. Why had I frozen like that? Where had that voice come from?

Staring down on the ravaged body of my patient, I didn’t think I was going to like the answers.

Then it was only Ryder and I left in the room. And the dead nun. The one who shouldn’t have been talking—especially with me being the only one who could hear her.

Ryder surprised me by taking her hand for a brief moment. Technically, once there was a corpse and foul play was suspected, the cops weren’t supposed to touch the body, only the medical examiner. But he wasn’t a cop right then. He looked down, his lips moving as if praying, then he dropped her hand and stepped back.

His shirt and jeans were covered in blood, as were his hands. Ribbons of it streaked his face, but as his gaze scoured the scene and his posture straightened, I could tell that Sister Patrice had now become a body, evidence.

We need to secure this room until the medical examiner gets here. I don’t care how busy you are, I’m not taking any chances with losing evidence. He didn’t wait for me to nod. I need to talk to those guards, check out the security cameras.

He stepped past me to leave, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm. His muscles bunched tight beneath my touch. You knew her?

Yeah. She was a good person. Worked with Father Vance over at St. Timothy’s. He shook his head, as if shaking away the memory of the nun as a person. You’ll get someone to stay with her?

I’ll stay with her.

He met my gaze, nodded solemnly, his lips tight. Thanks, doc. I’ll be back.

He strode out of the room, leaving me alone with the corpse.

I stared down at the dead nun, wishing I could cover her up, embarrassed by her nakedness, but she was evidence now. Less than human.

The only thing that marked her as a nun was the small cross around her neck, stained with blood. Her eyes were open; they were brown. Despite her short-cropped gray hair, she didn’t look very old. Maybe mid-forties. But I remembered that when I was a kid, our priest had never appeared to grow old, never had the worry lines and fatigue that made other adults seem used up before their time.

I stared at Sister Patrice, and she stared back, saying nothing. That was good. A step in the right direction.

I was half-tempted to rap on her skull with my knuckles. Knock-knock, anyone home?

Instead, I wrenched my gaze away and began cleaning up at the sink. My scrubs were ruined. I’d change into my regular clothes as soon as the coroner’s folks or a police officer arrived to stand guard. But right now it was just me and the dead nun. And my maybe-sorta-could-be crazy head.

Stress. That’s all it was. Cracking a chest is the biggest adrenaline-rush you could ask for. Holding someone’s heart in your hand…that had to be it.

Overworked, overtired. Same excuses I’d created for my other symptoms: the not sleeping for months, the occasional stumbling gait, the unexplained fevers, the new more worrisome tremors. Stress. Nothing a vacation wouldn’t cure.

Except with not-quite-dead nuns talking to me, I had to wonder if any vacation plans should include a trip to the psych ward. I was tempted to call Louise despite the fact that she’d be in the middle of her holiday family dinner.

If it had even really happened. I held my hands out in front of me. Steady. Not a quiver or shake.

I was about ready to believe it hadn’t happened. Just my imagination.

Except... who was the kid who needed help? Help the girl. Save the girl. That’s what Sister Patrice had said. Why would my mind conjure a hallucination it couldn’t understand?

As the warm water swirled over my hands, I tried to re-create those few seconds when I’d been catatonic. I didn’t even know what to call the episode. Partial complex seizure? Given the auditory hallucinations that had accompanied it, temporal lobe epilepsy was most likely.

Except, when I had stood frozen, holding Sister Patrice’s heart, it hadn’t been only her voice that had filtered into my brain. It had started with the bone-aching, beautiful music along with flashing lights that morphed into images blitzing by at super-speed, too many for me to process. I tried now to focus, to relive the episode in slow motion, dissecting it.

Sounds crazy, dissecting a hallucination, but what else was I going to do, trapped in a room with a dead nun?

If there is one thing I’m good at, it’s weeding out the nonessentials to zero in on what’s important. Mental triage. And right now, understanding my… event… seemed very important. To me, to Sister Patrice.

To an unnamed girl.

A single, pure note pierced my soul. High B in a warm timbre coaxed from the G-string on a violin. My fingers curled to form the note as if I held my fiddle, but as the tone grew in volume and depth, bright lights whirled around me, and suddenly I was frozen once more, locked inside my body.

Images swarmed my mind, skittering and buzzing, clamoring for attention as I strained to bring them into focus. This time I didn’t have the feeling of someone talking to me, rather it was like searching a musical score, notes and chords moving back and forth, rewinding, then slowing to a note-by-note replay.

A girl, too-skinny, with dark skin, gaunt cheekbones, black hair braided into an intricate pattern. She was a sparkling A-string glissando. Maybe eight, ten, twelve—like the nun, it was hard to tell her age. The music dropped, grew low and ominous. The girl looked scared. Blood streaked her clothing as she held Patrice’s hand, and they ran.

I shivered, felt physically there, with them in the dark. The music faded, leaving behind only the dull thud of rain against pavement. It was an alley, nighttime, cold wind knifing through my wet clothing. My? Patrice’s.

The girl yanked as I—Patrice—stumbled. Then I was fumbling with a key, my hands slick with blood. Shot, I’d been shot. The key finally turned, and I opened a heavy metal door, shoving the girl inside. Climb high, I told her, but it was Patrice’s voice I heard. Watch for Tyree’s traps.

No time to say more, they were almost here. Urgency scratched my nerves, a misfingered minor chord. I closed the door and turned back to face the darkness. I took one step, two. Now I could feel the pain my panic had blocked. Every breath agony. I stumbled away from the door, away from the girl, toward the darkness at the end of the alley.

Where is she? A voice screamed at me, loud and angry, I wasn’t sure if it was a man’s or a woman’s. Too close, it was too close. Fear clouded my mind. I reached for the one thing that had always provided comfort. Prayer. Dear God. Save her, please.

I—Patrice—expected an answer. Nothing came. Only the grim rain drumming on a dumpster’s lid.

I tried to keep running but ended up on my hands and knees, crawling, still praying.

Whispered voices came from behind me. The girl saw us. We have to find her.

A rat scrambled out of my way as I tumbled into a trash can, dumping it on its side. They stood over me, crowding out all light. Last chance. Where is she?

I closed my eyes, denying them answers. A shot sounded, crashing through my mind. As darkness descended, a sudden calm overtook me. My fingers searched for my cross, but my body was beyond my command. All I could do was pray.

Help the girl. Please, Lord. Save her.

The pound of a tympani crashed through me along with a rush of heat that left me gasping. Me, not Patrice. But her shadow clung to my psyche. My chest burned where she’d been shot. I fell forward against the sink, the water still running over my hands. That wasn’t me praying, that wasn’t me getting shot, dying.

Patrice. Somehow her memory had been embedded into my brain, worming its way into my consciousness.

My hands, no, every part of me shook at the realization. I could barely manage to turn the water off before slumping against the wall, staring at the nun’s body. I’d somehow become the answer to her prayers.

If this was real, I was being punked on a supremely cosmic level. Especially as I hadn’t believed in God or stepped foot in a church since my dad died.

Ironic, since I’d been hoping maybe God would talk to me at Dad’s funeral. I’d been praying for forgiveness, but had known it could as easily go the other way with hellfire and damnation. No way anyone would let me off easy, not after killing my dad, even if it was a tragic accident. But I was only twelve and still believed, so it somehow all made sense in a warped, Catholic schoolgirl kind of way.

My family and Father Kersavage and just about everyone had thought it best if I skipped the funeral, so I had. Not because I was used to doing what everyone—or anyone—told me to do, but because I’d known missing saying good-bye to my dad would hurt me more than them, and back then, hurting me had seemed more important than anything else.

Would even God wait twenty-two years to exact payback? I was all grown up now, skeptical of who or what God was, and sincerely doubted He/She/It would take time out of His/Her/Its busy schedule to mess with me.

Which left Option B: a severe deficiency of vitamin H. H for Haldol, a powerful antipsychotic. Or in layman’s terms: nuts, crazy, psycho, loony, daft, insane....

I glanced at the nun. She wasn’t talking, which was a relief.

Even if she did, how could I be sure it was really her? I sidled over, half-expecting her to sit up, let loose with some pea-soup special effects, and spin her head around on her neck. But she lay there like a good dead nun should.

Feeling like a thief stealing from the poor box, I grabbed her cell phone from where it had fallen onto the floor. Couldn’t let possible evidence be lost, I told myself as I flipped through the numbers stored in the contacts list. The one dialed most recently was labeled: Jessalyn. The one marked In Case of Emergency was labeled: Rectory. And the one called most often was labeled: Office.

I called the office number. It rang twice and went to voice mail. A woman’s voice said, This is Sister Patrice, I’m not available right now. Please leave a message.

I jumped back, dropping the phone. It was her. The voice in my head was the dead nun on the table before me. Shit, shit, shit. What the hell?

If the nun in my head was for real, did that mean the girl was as well?

The image of the little girl filled my mind, bringing with it melancholy tones of grief and fear. Lost, she was so lost—and scared.

I had to help her.

But how?

CHAPTER FOUR

Matthew Ryder opened the door to the Good Samaritan security office, expecting a few square badges sitting around with their thumbs up their asses. He was pleasantly surprised to see that although they were crammed into a room smaller than his first car, an ’89 Toyota Corolla hatchback, and had less-than-state-of-the-art equipment—Videotape? Who the hell still used tape?—they seemed on the ball, already pulling up footage and scouring it.

Did she make it? one of the two guards who had brought Sister Patrice in asked. His uniform was streaked with dried blood, and his voice held a tremor.

No. Tell me about the car. Ryder took the seat between the two at the monitors. The three of them were wedged in so tight their shoulders touched.

Here it is. Walt’s duping a copy for you, and Zimmerman’s on the phone with dispatch now. He nodded over his shoulder to where an older man, the supervisor, no doubt, paced as he spoke on a phone. We gave them the license plate. He’s waiting to see if the patrol cars were able to track it.

Ryder was less interested in where the car went than where it came from: his crime scene. The Major Crimes guys would eventually muscle in, but he was the detective on call. For now, this was his case. Show me.

The guard, Tinker, his name tag read—bet those jokes got old fast—hit some buttons, and one of the screens went blank then started up again with a grainy picture blurred even more by the rain. The ER ambulance bay. One ambulance was leaving, obstructing the view, then as it pulled away, a low-slung, light-colored sedan came into view. American, looked like a beat-up old Caprice, primer patches marring the paint job. White, maybe silver or tan. Couldn’t see the driver through the rain drumming against the windshield.

The car barely slowed, swinging sideways alongside the sliding doors leading to the ER. The car’s rear door sprang open. A man’s hands—Hispanic or light-skinned black, maybe dark-skinned Asian—rolled a woman’s body from the car as the driver pounded the horn. As soon as the first security guard appeared at the ER entrance, the car sped off, water spraying Patrice’s body.

There’s the plate. Tinker froze the frame. Ryder made a note of it. Dispatch already had the manhunt going, although if the actors were smart, they’d ditch the car. It was a